How Would the Invasion Have Been Different if...

[LK]

HHH and Chris Benoit weren't injured?

Would this have changed who defected to the alliance, who became the leader of the WWF, the outcome, etc?

Thoughts?

[Shisen Kopf]

The invasion woulda still sucked

[weather vane]

They needed the nWo, Flair, DDP and Goldberg...

[CSL]

I think we'd have seen Benoit switched to WCW/the Alliance with his past, he could have played a prominent part with Shane, Stephanie and especially Heyman doing the mic work. And I think Trips would probably have lined up against Austin in the Angle role. Other than that, it would probably all have been pretty much the same.

[LK]

But if HHH was still around would they have used Steph as the ECW owner considering the McMahon-Helmsley era was still going on around the time HHH got injured?

I suspect Jericho would have defected along with Benoit and the role of the Rock would have been very different.

[Nicky Fives]

With HHH healthy, it would make no sense for him and Steph to be on opposite sides, nor would it make sense for Trips to side with WCW after what they did with him.....

Therefore, HHH would have ruined the invasion

Benoit would have been the #2 Heel of the Alliance behind Austin, eventually turning on them and heading back to the WWF after ECW & WCW constantly argued which side he belonged on..... (I realize that they were the same group, but that's how it all plays out in my head)

[CSL]

There was nothing stopping Stephanie from 'buying ECW', Triple H not liking it/'being loyal' to Vince and that being a catalyst for their break up. It's pro wrestling, not an HBO show.

[CSL]

Well not a good HBO show anyway.

[BizarroKing]

http://www.wrestlecrap.com/rwtbinvasion1.html

Wrestlecrap asking "What if the Invasion had not failed".

[Innovator]

There wouldn't have been an Invasion angle.

[Rammsteinmad]

If Benoit and Triple H were around during the Invasion, I think the Alliance would have been defeated a lot sooner than Survivor Series.

[LK]

http://www.wrestlecrap.com/rwtbinvasion1.html

Wrestlecrap asking "What if the Invasion had not failed".
I made it through the first night and already that's worse than the actual invasion.

[LK]

With HHH healthy, it would make no sense for him and Steph to be on opposite sides, nor would it make sense for Trips to side with WCW after what they did with him.....

Therefore, HHH would have ruined the invasion

Benoit would have been the #2 Heel of the Alliance behind Austin, eventually turning on them and heading back to the WWF after ECW & WCW constantly argued which side he belonged on..... (I realize that they were the same group, but that's how it all plays out in my head)
I don't think we can really talk about this whole thing making sense cause by that logic, it made absolutely no sense for Austin to join after the way he was treated by WCW.

[DLVH84]

I don't think we can really talk about this whole thing making sense cause by that logic, it made absolutely no sense for Austin to join after the way he was treated by WCW.

True, but ECW treated Austin well...they gave him free reign to express himself, which helped his promos in the long run.

[LK]

That was never identified though. It wasn't like Austin had loyalty to any of the ECW guys over the WCW guys. I suspect Austin might not have jumped ship and HHH would have as his effort to rule wrestling again.

[Testicle]

The invasion woulda still sucked

[Rollermacka]

They needed the nWo, Flair, DDP and Goldberg...

Yea, that's why the Invasion wasn't the "dream match" we hoped for because most of the major WCW stars where still under contract. Also, who is this "Chris Beniot" you speak of? I can't seem to find anything about him on the WWE website? :wave:

[LK]

Sorry not Benoit, I meant Wild Pegasus.

[St. Jimmy]

Austin as the WWF Champ and the leader of the Invastion
Triple H as the WHC and leader of the WWF

Culminating in matches they already had planned for the two. Hasn't this been discussed and answered a billion times?

[MoFo]

Power Trip was awesome.

[Emperor Smeat]

It still would have failed but maybe only Stone Cold defects instead of having Angle and Stone Cold to beef up the WCW side.

The biggest problem was almost all the big names from WCW were not involved in the Invasion and didn't start arriving in the WWF until after the whole feud was done.

Only reason ECW and WWF wrestlers with ties to ECW merged with the WCW side was due to the severe lack of big names on the WCW side. During the Monday Night War, ECW and WWF had a much friendlier relationship than ECW's resentment of WCW.

[DLVH84]

Exactly. The real big names in WCW had contracts with AOL/Time Warner that Vince couldn't touch, which was why the storyline wasn't believable. Vince had out of WCW was 2 main eventers (Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page), while the rest were mid-carders.

[HBPunk]

They could have put the WCW mid carders over the WWF guys to make them look like a legit threat but looking back now i think Vince did it the way he did just so he could keep making WCW look weak.

If they really wanted the invasion to work, they could have held off a bit, built the feud very slowly with ECW attempting to take over first and seemingly failing, then when NWO, Goldberg etc were ready to join, throw them into the equation and let it go from there. The only way it was gonna end was in a WWF victory so i dont think it matters anyway. Seeing Goldberg vs Austin woulda been cool and Hogan vs Austin too but Vince had the chance to do that in 2002 and didnt bother so whatever

[loopydate]

Exactly. The real big names in WCW had contracts with AOL/Time Warner that Vince couldn't touch, which was why the storyline wasn't believable. Vince had out of WCW was 2 main eventers (Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page), while the rest were mid-carders.

It wasn't so much that they were untouchable as it was that Vince didn't want to pay what would have been the exorbitantly high cost of buying them out. It would have cost him more to buy the rest of Sting/Steiner/Goldberg/Hogan/Nash/Flair/etc.'s contracts than it did to buy WCW in the first place.

[Rollermacka]

Maybe this is alittle further reaching but let's say that The Radicalz didn't leave WCW. One of the main reasons was Sullivan becoming head booker, let's say they stayed and Benoit would have accepted the world title offer